Say there is an application that allows performing transactions by users. Say that the transactions need to be reviewed at the end of the day to confirm that they are accurate or run through some other audits and finally “post” (confirm) those transactions. In that case, the app has two choices. It can choose to say that some of the data is “pending updates” and not show up to the minute summary or show the up to the minute information as per the transactions with a big foot note that it’s accuracy will be confirmed at the end of the day. Which option would you go with?
For me, I would love to go with the option of showing the summary as up to the minute as possible. However, the big financial company that I use thinks the other way. This is really annoying because I don’t get an accurate picture till the end of the day. Infact, after a stock sale the settlement takes up to 3 business days and during that time the summary information is very useless. It wasn’t a big deal since I hardly trade. But recently I had a few trades in the last few days and it’s a total mess. I have no clue how much cash reserves are there, what my tax implications are etc. I know eventually everything will fall in place, but I want it as of now!
When designing an app, it’s important to see what the end user wants and not just what your internal procedures are. With a lot of consumer facing companies like banks and retailers providing web applications, it’s something to keep in mind.
poeticcode 